1. Field of the Invention
The field of art to which this invention pertains may be generally located in the class of devices relating to valves. Class 137, Fluid Handling, United States Patent Office Classification, appears to be the applicable general area of art to which the subject matter similar to this invention has been classified in the past.
2. Description of the Prior Art
This invention relates to a flow control ball valve with an integrated removable venturi, a flow balancing means, and a pipe union means for use in a heating, ventilating and air conditioning system. The integrated structure of the present invention combines the most sought after components used in piping fan coils and air handling units into a single compact, easy to install product. Heating and cooling systems have widely varying flow rates requiring different sized venturis to properly measure the flow through the systems. Whenever a heating, ventilating and air conditioning chilled water or hot water system is installed in a facility, it employs terminal units such as fan coils, heat pumps, air handlers or ventilating air coils to heat or cool the individual spaces within the facility. To allow each coil to be insulated, serviced, checked and balanced, a number of components are used. These components include isolation valves, balance valves, unions and pressure/temperature readout ports. Components can, and are, used in virtually any combination. A typical job will use a number of each of these components around every coil to satisfy the requirements as stated on the plans for a system. Unfortunately, these component combinations can become very complex. A typical two-way coil piping schematic for a large facility, for example, can contain over eight components and fifteen pipe fittings which require over 26 piping connections to complete. At ten minutes per piping connection, this works out to over four hours to pipe up one coil. Multiply this by the fifty or so coils on a normal job, and a labor requirement quickly runs up into the hundreds of hours, and thousands of dollars of labor costs.